State Farm was one of the first to deploy drones for visual inspection of roof damage and catastrophic losses. Due to the risk of interfering with commercial aviation and potential injury to the public, drones are regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
In 2015, State Farm became the first insurance company granted permission by the FAA to test drones for commercial use. State Farm worked with the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership at Virginia Tech to understand drone safety concerns.
This expanded in 2017 to the use of Claims drone pilots for aerial inspection of roof damage. Following Hurricanes Florence and Michael in 2018, State Farm was the only insurance company granted a waiver by the FAA to conduct Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) and Operations over People (OOP) for catastrophe damage assessment. State Farm was the first company to also receive a national waiver for continuing BVLOS and OOP operations for catastrophe assessments.